


the last time

by nui (cogito)



Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, dubcon for the kuroshin part, kuroha is his own warning tag, outer science x like 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-20
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-16 10:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1343884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cogito/pseuds/nui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The four times Kuroha commits murder and the one time he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the last time

**Author's Note:**

> i was gonna write kanokuro too but i felt like seto had more of a thing going on with kuroha rip
> 
> beta'd by tess and dia! thanks a bunch!

**_i._**

 

Kuroha asks, “Do you want to protect her?” 

The frog replies, snarling, “I’ll never let you hurt her…!” 

The snake sneers, raising the boy in the air despite his struggles. The boy squirms violently against Kuroha’s tightening grip. The boy’s blood pulsates against the tightness of Kuroha’s hands. Kuroha feels Seto’s heartbeat beating rapidly while he struggles to get free. “Mary…” Seto’s frail, now quiet voice ekes out.

Good, this is good.

Kuroha doesn’t even mind the clawing at his fingers and his hands, or when the fleshy material of his skin scrapes and bruises. After all, the frog’s futile efforts will never work. The frog could never protect the princess; no matter how many time lines they must trek through, no matter how many times Kuroha kills him.

Kuroha’s yellow eyes seem to hum in tune to the clockwork ticking away in his chest. The boy’s red, red blood splatters on the floor and across Kuroha’s hands as he squeezes tighter, tighter. Colour drains from Seto’s face, changing his skin from white to red to blue, to the eventual, sharp crack. The struggling stops, and the boy goes limp. Kuroha lets go.

The same crack sends shivers down Kuroha’s spine, and he laughs, cackling as he smears Seto’s blood across his face with his hands.

The queen screams.

He loves it. He loves this. Killing the queen’s friends over and over and over again only makes him more excited for the next time it comes. He shoots a glance at her out of the corner of his eye while the blood continues to drip from his hands. The thinner parts are already drying, though. Kuroha’s lips turn down. What now? What sort of thing is she planning next? He’s so curious it makes him shake with excitement.

That’s the best part of leaving Seto for last.

It’s always this boy that she loves most. She’d do anything to protect him. Kuroha ge gives the lifeless body a kick, rolling it out of the way as he takes a step closer towards his queen. 

She screams for Seto, her friends, and the mother she lost all those years ago. She can scream as much as she likes, though, but none of that will ever work. She shouts, she wails, she cries, and Kuroha only laughs until the world crumbles down around them.

“See you again.”

 

**_ii._**

 

 

In his dreams he remembers a girl with twin tails, denying him and pushing him away to the best of her abilities like he’s not even worthy of her time. 

Kuroha knows now, where Konoha didn’t. Although it wasn’t much of a secret to begin with, if he just puts his mind to it. It’s stupid how bad they are at guesswork. As if Konoha was any better, though. Both of them were idiots, and they are dead to him now, only gouged out fragments and discarded memories.

He’s been waiting for her, waiting for them to cross by since the deal at the amusement park. He wants to see the girl caged in the phone, to free her, by any means necessary. Immortality? He scoffs at such a word. There’s no way one would be immortal, even with the snake’s help, but she still seems to remember every timeline.

That’s why he has to kill her for real this time.

Kuroha’s eyes scan up from the ground. They’ve noticed him. Mission time.

“He shouldn’t be able to see us- ” The ghost says, hushed and harried. Her voice betrays the panic in her cool mask. He senses the deceiver and the mind reader already moving into action, one-stepping towards him, and the other holding out an arm around the Queen.

He sneers.

Before long, the deceiver is in his path. Kuroha only wordlessly slides the gun from its resting place, fingers wrapping around the trigger and clicking with ease. He’s been practicing for this, no need to waste any words on either of them. Two sharp bangs, and the liar falls to the ground, his black snake slithers towards Kuroha.

His eyes drift towards the NEET’s phone. The ghost is crying again, wailing and moaning the deceiver’s death. Although they are satisfying for a short time, her noises quickly turn grating, and he shoots her. The frog too, rushes towards him like it would have any effect.

But it doesn’t. It never does.

So Kuroha yanks the phone out of the NEEt’s arms as the trio lie dead on the ground. Inside it, the digital girl cries and bawls and screams at him. _Why are you doing this? What did we ever do to you? Konoha, why?_

Kuroha laughs and places a gentle kiss against the phone screen despite her crying and pleas, despite the fact that she’ll never be able to touch him again. A part of him feels sad, pathetic at the hopeless romance he holds in his mechanical heart.

 _Fuck it_ , he thinks, and mashes the phone to shreds in his hands and beneath his feet. Kuroha whispers, almost tearfully, 

“Goodbye, Takane.”

 

**_iii._**

 

The word queen is such an effective tease when he sneers it at the white haired girl who only glares at him in return. He recalls when she would be a sobbing mess, crying and wailing for her friends’ return, before she understood the importance of her powers, and now she’s glaring, as if prepared for what he’s about to do. She’s so pathetic, Kuroha thinks, being unable to move on.

Mary cries, reaching out for her best friend as Kuroha tosses Momo aside somewhere, dying in a pool of her own blood. The shock on her face will always, always be enough for him to enjoy this. Mary screams and falls to her face, pounding her fists against the floor.

“S-stop this already!” She bawls as Kuroha steps over her dead body to reach the leader and the dead liar, trying to reach each other, even in death.

Kuroha smirks in his shrug, “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.” 

Then he steps on Kido’s body, crushing her ribcage beneath his heel. Kido’s already frail breaths grow shallow with her cries of pain, but she reaches none the less for Kano, even as her lungs and heart collapses all together.

Mary screams.

Kuroha laughs some more.

“You’re jealous,” The elder medusa whispers behind him, and he whirls around to see his creator. Still restrained, Azami only stares at him, and Kuroha’s eyes flare bright, crimson red with indignation. She doesn’t say much else, and instead opts to watch at him with her cold impassivity. Kuroha hates the way her eyes pierce through him, like they know what he’s feeling. The snake turns his head to deal with the queen heaving in front of him.

“Aren’t you the pathetic one?” The words echo in his mind so loudly that his ears flare red. Kuroha’s brows furrow in frustration as his hands tighten around Seto’s neck, squeezing, as if that would release the embarrassment he’s feeling. It hurts to not be recognized, it hurts to not be acknowledged.

Once the pests are dealt with, Kuroha steps towards his queen. He takes her hand and pulls her up so she stands on her wobbling feet like a newborn doe. He twirls her around, like a princess, and puller her close with a crooked smile dancing on his face. Kuroha clasps her hands around his throat.

“Come on, your majesty, can’t you do a little better than just scream?” He’s laughing again, cackling as her hands wrap around his throat in response to his goading and prodding, “Your friends won’t be coming back any time soon, and this will stop if you just kill me. So go on, take vengeance.”

She wants to kill him, and he knows! That’s why the generous Kuroha has never done anything against her wishes. She never wanted to leave them behind, so he killed them all! She’s never wanted anything as much as she’s wanted this. Mary shakes, and Kuroha snickers even as her fingers press down, tighter and tighter, until his breathing trembles and eventually, stops all together.

But his laughter, his dark laughter remains even as Mary turns towards a new timeline with the hope that it’ll all work out again.

 

**_iv._**

 

Shintaro is pathetic, almost as much as Haruka was. 

In some timelines, Kuroha takes an excursion before the two-year exclusion to visit the house-bound hikkimori just to see how he copes with Ayano’s death, even though he already knows it doesn’t work out well. And he’s right; Shintaro has an awful time coping and just ends up crying and locking himself up in desperation all the time. 

“Kill me,” Shintaro begs, looking up at Kuroha with a tear-streaked face, “Kill me so I can be with Ayano.”

Anger flares in his heart, but Kuroha says nothing and obliges, wrapping his hand around Shintaro’s throat. He snaps the NEET’s head with a sharp crack. He can almost hear Shintaro whisper a silent, “Thank you,” as he departs. Was Shinaro even capable of thanks? Kuroha gingerly touches his heart, this was something that he was supposed to feel good for, right? Yet, even if it was supposed to be liberating, why does he feel like he’s being gnawed at?

He doesn’t get an answer, even as this timeline ends.

In other timelines, Kuroha encounters Shintaro as he is with the rest of the Dan. This Shintaro is more open, more rebellious, and frankly, much more fun to kill. He laughs with his friends and the girl in the phone who tries to cheer him up so badly, and he isn’t afraid of going outside anymore. There’s a renewed spirit in there somewhere that Kuroha wants to break, to reduce to the base, writhing pile of flesh that cried over Ayano’s death. There’s a certain sense of victory and satisfaction that comes with breaking the unbroken. It makes him stop feeling sorry for himself.

But there are times where Kuroha will kiss him, setting his lips against Shintaro’s soda-flavoured lips, as if kissing Shintaro will fill the empty spot where his understanding of love would go.

And then Shintaro will gasp as Kuroha straddles him, mumbling out a incredulous, “Haru—ka?”

“It’s fine like this, isn’t it?” The snake will whisper softly against his chest, “You don’t mind me being here, right?”

“N-no, of course not—”

Kuroha will smile as scans Shintaro’s half panicked eyes for some sort of answer. Then, as he leans in for a kiss, he’ll whisper instead, “Oh Shintaro, no one really loves you.”

The look of shock that will suddenly drape over Shintaro’s face is enough. Then Kuroha will punch Shintaro in the stomach, knocking him over so he can pin Shintaro to the bed as Shintaro is still reeling from the pain. And then Shintaro will cry, beg, to be released, and for Haruka to come back. 

“Maybe next time,” the snake would hiss in response.

After all, the time between the resets is never quite enough to do anything else but to snap Shintaro’s neck.

 

 

**_v._**

 

Kuroha says he doesn’t understand love, even after all these timelines. He’s sitting in Shintaro’s seat, haphazardly draping himself in a manner that reminds her all too much of the boy she used the trail around.

 _She_ laughs at him from her own seat. She doesn’t say anything, but it riles Kuroha up the way she understands the situation better than he does. She has no control and yet manages to stay so calm, even happy, about it. 

He hates the way her laughter flows through her veins and pumps her heart to keep her moving. And he hates even more so the way her lips crinkle upwards when she says she loves her family, her friends, and the boy with the dead soulless eyes that stares at her when she isn’t looking. Kuroha knows. He’s been staring at the same boy for as long as he could remember.

Even within the depths of Haruka’s failing heart.

Kuroha knows that depressed boy has been in love with her since the beginning of time. Kuroha watches the boy when she doesn’t. But why tell the ‘hero’ that? Why encourage her when she is his personal source of endless frustration?

She tells him about her grief without warning, without prompting. She regrets leaving him alone, and wishes that she could see him one last time. She wants to see her family too, the boys and the girls in their little gang. The same family Kuroha has slain so many times effortlessly, drenching himself in their blood.

“That’s stupid,” Kuroha barks, “Your ideas are stupid. You think playing hero is going to save them?”

Ayano turns from the window, her face illuminated in the warm twilight. His responses have only ever elicited her soft giggles. Kuroha growls, his hands bawling into fists before he takes a step forward. Then his hands are clapped around her shoulders, squeezing tight so she can’t escape his grip.

She doesn’t struggle, and the only noise in the room is her resounding laughter. He shakes her, demanding answers and explanations for her patience and hope. Ayano only offers him her best smile until he calms. He is violent and she knows this, so she lets him shake her over and over again, until he is satisfied.

“But you loved those days, don’t you? You loved going to school and hanging out with us… who would always take time to help me out… and the android that and created who wanted to protect his friends… you remember that, don’t you?”

Kuroha snarls in return, opening his mouth for a sentence. But as he does so, he notices the world around him beginning to unravel, peeling back like layers of dry, crumbling paint. The snake hisses.

It’s time to try again.

“Haruka-senpai,” Ayano says after his moment of silence, while they’re watching the world deteriorate.

Alarmed, Kuroha takes a step back. When did she figure out the identity of that pathetic little boy with the fragile, breaking heart? He’s abandoned that identity already, and yet just the mention of that wretched boy makes him weak. He doesn’t want to go back when the world resets itself. He doesn’t want to lose his freedom.

“I hope someday, I’ll be able to save you as well.”

She throws her scarf over Kuroha’s neck and carefully secures it into place before she pushes him backwards in to the white abyss. Ayano instead she just stares at him warmly from her space. She’ll be waiting for him to come again, in that time between timelines. Maybe next time, he’d have a little bit longer to understand just what she means.

“Wait-” Kuroha yells, “What the hell are you thinking?!”

The world goes white before he hears Ayano’s answer. The last thing he sees is the vivid red scarf falling in with him, and the bright, sun-illuminated smile on her face.


End file.
